As they become more successful, populist radical right parties face a tension between keeping their nativist credentials and moderating their appeal to gain new voters. We argue that differentiating party messages to core supporters and the wider electorate allows parties to pursue both goals. We outline and empirically illustrate the previously underexplored phenomenon of selective messaging based on the communication strategy of the Hungarian Jobbik party throughout its lifespan (2006–19) in partisan outlets, press releases and Facebook. Using a dictionary approach, we map the co-evolution of populist and nativist mobilization under conditions of supply- and demand-side changes. Our results show the decline and transformation of Jobbik's nativist appeal, and an increasing reliance on populism. The trend is not uniform; Jobbik relies on nativism as a function of targeting party identifiers or the general electorate in specific media outlets. Our findings show the importance of mapping parties’ programmatic appeal across platforms and over time.

The populist radical right (PRR) is increasingly associated with welfare chauvinism, but the literature mainly focuses on Western and Northern European cases. Turning attention to Central Eastern Europe, this article investigates how PRR parties in Hungary frame welfare issues in five social policy areas from 2010 to 2016. This is done through a critical frame analysis applied to party manifestos and State of the Nation speeches by the Fidesz and Jobbik parties. Special care is taken to delineate the interlocking but not interchangeable concepts of nationalism and populism, as recent research asserts this distinction is often overlooked. The main findings are threefold: First, these parties articulate their positions chiefly through nationalist rather than populist framing; Second, while Hungary's PRR exhibits welfare chauvinist framing similar to Western and Northern Europe, a main difference detected was the role of the communist legacy; Third, beyond the article's original goals, the findings revealed a strong connection between nationalist framing and the role of gender, suggesting that the two are not mutually exclusive.

In the digital age, the Internet is an important factor in the emergence and success of political parties and social movements. Despite growing evidence that extremists of all stripes use the virtual world for their purposes, research on this topic still lacks a wide array of empirical data, case studies, and theoretical background. In particular, Facebook, as the most important social networking site, is a new tool for political parties and movements to mobilize followers. The article explores how the extreme-right party Jobbik uses this tool more successfully than other Hungarian parties or Western European extreme-right parties. Comparing the growth in followers highlights this success, and a look at how it generates likes helps to explain it. The article argues that Jobbik uses Facebook in a sophisticated way and suggests that this “likable” attitude helps to attract young and first-time voters.